It is common for providers of goods and services to inform potential customers of the existence and selling points of their products through advertising. However, all advertising is not equally effective. Experience has shown that advertising aimed at a specific target group which is likely to have a need for, or interest in, a particular product is in general much more effective than advertising intended for the public as a whole. Consequently, advertisers are often faced with the formidable task of creating strategies to effectively reach a specific demographic group with targeted marketing.
Providers of goods and services, acting as advertisers, typically pay for the use of media such as billboards, signage, television and radio broadcasts, internet media, and printed publications such as newspapers and magazines to make their advertisements available to the public. These media are viewed by many people, some targeted at specific groups of people with varying degrees of effectiveness. Consequently, wise use of such advertising media increases the likelihood that sales of the advertised product or service will produce desired revenue levels to a business.
Typically, a direct relationship exists between the rates charged by owners or purveyors of media available to the public and the estimated size or composition of the audience that media has been shown to command.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.